![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
knights_say_nihJack does the trapeze thing. This may actually be an OOM later, dunno.
He’s in London, and some time before the war, just here to see what it’s like and wandering the streets when he sees the sign. He’s bored of the Punch and Judy shows, he’s seen Buckingham Palaces, and the Tower and so on, so he goes in.
Other people buy popcorn, and some of the children have toffee and the benches are uncomfortable and made of wood, the lions are impressive but nothing extraordinarily special. He’s fidgeting; he can’t hear what the man in the centre of the ring is announcing.
But then the first man swings in, soaring through the air, there’s nothing between him and the ground and Jack almost falls off his seat in surprise, shock, joy, envy and a hundred other things he can’t put words to. Recognition.
He wants that to be him.
The trapeze artists are quick and sure, and Jack’s heart is in his throat. The crowd likes the bearded woman better, but he ignores her and all the other tents there are to visit, scrambling through the crowds to go find them.
Teach me how to do that, he begs, there’s nothing more he wants in the world, oh, it was beautiful, please. The ringmaster says to take him on if he’s any good, (it helps that he’s willing to work practically for free) and the tumbler in charge takes him inside to see how he moves.
A few rudimentary tumbles, which he mimics swiftly: handstand, cartwheel, one arm and two, and a flip and that’s that. He says he did some work in Abyssinia. They believe it, are impressed, and he gets the job. The circus packs up, and Jack goes with them, being fitted in his own harlequin patterns, learning how to paint his face, to make his eyes look wild and dark, to keep his hair back out of his eyes.
They don’t let him anywhere near the ropes for days, it feels like forever, and even then he’s the person that throws things. A hoop into the air for another man to dive through (John, his name is John,) at high speeds. A parasol for Eliza to play with daintily, even though everyone’s looking at her legs and not at her.
When he’s mastered that, and with the proper flair, and never once flinched as someone came whipping down to snatch something from his hands, then soared up in a glorious arc, he started being the plant. The young boy in the audience (acting, dressed younger than he told them he was- a child to be played with, taking advantage of his slight build) who volunteered, was led into the ring, and then grabbed by the arms in a rush of screams, and flung into John’s arms. He’s allowed to pretend to be frightened. He’s not allowed to flinch, in case they miss their grip at the shift.
He never twitches a muscle, and the circus master tells him to cover his face with his hands, because he looks too joyful to be real. It’s easy to tremble when he’s led back to his seat- the adrenaline is that powerful.
The first jump he makes, he yells, hear the sound snatched out of his mouth by the rush of wind. Swings up and then back, and holds on and rides the motion until the momentum’s gone, then flips neatly off and lands in the net they’ve set up, like they do when they’re learning a new trick.
God, he says, four or five times, lying there on his back and looking up at the garish stripes of the tent ceiling. Eliza is laughing at him from somewhere, he can’t pinpoint where, it makes no difference. Nothing matters right now.
Except getting up there and doing that again.
He does it like he’s not afraid of falling, and he isn’t, even when he does and bounces painfully on the net, head over heels and ropes chafing on his skin. Five more times. Ten more times. Falls again, and doesn’t care, pain comes and goes but this is beautiful, achingly beautiful, dancing in the sky.
The sun is setting when they drag him down.
He’s been at the circus for three months, his time, and thinks he should probably go back to the bar, or he’ll start forgetting things (he sometimes forgets things, you know) and he promised he would.
At any rate, he writes Mercutio a letter that he starts and rips up four times, but that eventually goes like this;
Hello,
I am safe. I miss you. I slept with Belial, you see, and I cannot be back right now but maybe soon. I love you. London is rainy right now, and when I do come back I am going to have to lie with you in front of a fire for hours to feel properly dry again.
It should not be much longer, and that is a promise. Promises mean things. Especially to you, I would not break my word to you.
I am a new kind of thing now; I cannot wait to show you. You will come to the high top and see me in my diamond-suit as I leap through the sky, like a silent parrot or bejewelled swallow. Imagine it, Mercutio, flying on a whim with a net between you and the ground and the wood clutched in your hands the only thing keeping you up.
Tell Parker it will not be much longer- I hope it is shorter for you there than it is for me here, but I cannot dream of leaving this place, not yet.
Yours, yours, utterly yours
And thinking of you night and day,
Jack.
That night he learns how to swing from one, let fly, and snatch the second bar out of the air. It’s a brand new exciting kind of movement, and for the next week his promise is set aside in exchange for learning this as quickly and profoundly as he can. From hanging on his feet, knees curled under, for dear life, to grabbing with his hands. Hands, flip off, twist, don’t slip now, to his hands. Hands to his feet, just so, just so, there.
He has his first bad fall then, falling just short and twisting off sideways, then hitting the side of the net and going off onto the hard packed dirt. It bruises him up something horrible, and he lies in bed and aches for a day and a half.
He eats what he has to (which is what they bring him and tell him to,) and changes the bandages on the scrapes, resigning himself to momentary incapacitation. His face is bruised only on the jaw, and not extensively (though he swears his teeth are rattled) so he can hobble about the city on a stick, at least. He isn’t dying of boredom.
He is, however, feeling rather abused and wanting nothing more than to be able to go back up there.
He still isn’t afraid, how could he be?
It’s flying.
He’s in London, and some time before the war, just here to see what it’s like and wandering the streets when he sees the sign. He’s bored of the Punch and Judy shows, he’s seen Buckingham Palaces, and the Tower and so on, so he goes in.
Other people buy popcorn, and some of the children have toffee and the benches are uncomfortable and made of wood, the lions are impressive but nothing extraordinarily special. He’s fidgeting; he can’t hear what the man in the centre of the ring is announcing.
But then the first man swings in, soaring through the air, there’s nothing between him and the ground and Jack almost falls off his seat in surprise, shock, joy, envy and a hundred other things he can’t put words to. Recognition.
He wants that to be him.
The trapeze artists are quick and sure, and Jack’s heart is in his throat. The crowd likes the bearded woman better, but he ignores her and all the other tents there are to visit, scrambling through the crowds to go find them.
Teach me how to do that, he begs, there’s nothing more he wants in the world, oh, it was beautiful, please. The ringmaster says to take him on if he’s any good, (it helps that he’s willing to work practically for free) and the tumbler in charge takes him inside to see how he moves.
A few rudimentary tumbles, which he mimics swiftly: handstand, cartwheel, one arm and two, and a flip and that’s that. He says he did some work in Abyssinia. They believe it, are impressed, and he gets the job. The circus packs up, and Jack goes with them, being fitted in his own harlequin patterns, learning how to paint his face, to make his eyes look wild and dark, to keep his hair back out of his eyes.
They don’t let him anywhere near the ropes for days, it feels like forever, and even then he’s the person that throws things. A hoop into the air for another man to dive through (John, his name is John,) at high speeds. A parasol for Eliza to play with daintily, even though everyone’s looking at her legs and not at her.
When he’s mastered that, and with the proper flair, and never once flinched as someone came whipping down to snatch something from his hands, then soared up in a glorious arc, he started being the plant. The young boy in the audience (acting, dressed younger than he told them he was- a child to be played with, taking advantage of his slight build) who volunteered, was led into the ring, and then grabbed by the arms in a rush of screams, and flung into John’s arms. He’s allowed to pretend to be frightened. He’s not allowed to flinch, in case they miss their grip at the shift.
He never twitches a muscle, and the circus master tells him to cover his face with his hands, because he looks too joyful to be real. It’s easy to tremble when he’s led back to his seat- the adrenaline is that powerful.
The first jump he makes, he yells, hear the sound snatched out of his mouth by the rush of wind. Swings up and then back, and holds on and rides the motion until the momentum’s gone, then flips neatly off and lands in the net they’ve set up, like they do when they’re learning a new trick.
God, he says, four or five times, lying there on his back and looking up at the garish stripes of the tent ceiling. Eliza is laughing at him from somewhere, he can’t pinpoint where, it makes no difference. Nothing matters right now.
Except getting up there and doing that again.
He does it like he’s not afraid of falling, and he isn’t, even when he does and bounces painfully on the net, head over heels and ropes chafing on his skin. Five more times. Ten more times. Falls again, and doesn’t care, pain comes and goes but this is beautiful, achingly beautiful, dancing in the sky.
The sun is setting when they drag him down.
He’s been at the circus for three months, his time, and thinks he should probably go back to the bar, or he’ll start forgetting things (he sometimes forgets things, you know) and he promised he would.
At any rate, he writes Mercutio a letter that he starts and rips up four times, but that eventually goes like this;
Hello,
I am safe. I miss you. I slept with Belial, you see, and I cannot be back right now but maybe soon. I love you. London is rainy right now, and when I do come back I am going to have to lie with you in front of a fire for hours to feel properly dry again.
It should not be much longer, and that is a promise. Promises mean things. Especially to you, I would not break my word to you.
I am a new kind of thing now; I cannot wait to show you. You will come to the high top and see me in my diamond-suit as I leap through the sky, like a silent parrot or bejewelled swallow. Imagine it, Mercutio, flying on a whim with a net between you and the ground and the wood clutched in your hands the only thing keeping you up.
Tell Parker it will not be much longer- I hope it is shorter for you there than it is for me here, but I cannot dream of leaving this place, not yet.
Yours, yours, utterly yours
And thinking of you night and day,
Jack.
That night he learns how to swing from one, let fly, and snatch the second bar out of the air. It’s a brand new exciting kind of movement, and for the next week his promise is set aside in exchange for learning this as quickly and profoundly as he can. From hanging on his feet, knees curled under, for dear life, to grabbing with his hands. Hands, flip off, twist, don’t slip now, to his hands. Hands to his feet, just so, just so, there.
He has his first bad fall then, falling just short and twisting off sideways, then hitting the side of the net and going off onto the hard packed dirt. It bruises him up something horrible, and he lies in bed and aches for a day and a half.
He eats what he has to (which is what they bring him and tell him to,) and changes the bandages on the scrapes, resigning himself to momentary incapacitation. His face is bruised only on the jaw, and not extensively (though he swears his teeth are rattled) so he can hobble about the city on a stick, at least. He isn’t dying of boredom.
He is, however, feeling rather abused and wanting nothing more than to be able to go back up there.
He still isn’t afraid, how could he be?
It’s flying.
